Remarkable Gains During COVID Summer

Dual assessments show 1 year’s growth in 3 months.

This summer The Learning Alliance, a literacy nonprofit, sponsored its first implementation of Sing Out and READ’s Family Literacy Project (FLiP) at Pelican Island Elementary, Vero Beach, FL. To measure the rising 3rd graders’ gains, The Learning Alliance along with its teachers employed two separate assessment tools. The results are now in, and they are indeed remarkable.

Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) scores were assessed at the beginning and end of the 12-week session. Normally, one would expect such rising 3rd graders to lose ground between June and September as the "Summer Slide" takes its predictable toll. The opposite occurred.

The average June score of 74 words correct per minute (WCPM) went up in September to 96 WCPM. That’s an increase of 23% which, in light of the Pandemic, is nothing short of amazing.

The second assessment used was the i-Ready Diagnostic Assessment of Reading. Normally this would be administered three times during the school year: September, December and May. However due to school closures resulting from the Pandemic last spring, no May assessment occurred. As a result, the educators had to compare the expected gains to the actual gains over the time from December 2019 to September 2020 (mid-Winter of the last school year to Fall of the new school year.)

The expectations for these new 3rd graders was to increase 14 points on the i-Ready scale scores. In fact, though, the Sing Out and READ FLiP kids gained 25 points. The 25 points represent a full year’s reading gain!